


Travelling

by shieraseastar03



Series: ACOMAF [10]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Illyrian Camps, The Night Court, The Spring Court (ACoTaR), Touching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-29 10:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19018270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieraseastar03/pseuds/shieraseastar03





	1. Illyrian Camps

The morning came with the bright sunlight emerging from the windows, Rhys and Shiera opened their eyes and found out that they were in the exact position that when they had fallen asleep. 

Their eyes met and she placed her head under his chin, touching his tattooed neck as he pressed a kiss on her hair. 

“Good morning, Shiera darling” Rhys purred, “Good morning… I hope that the last night hasn't been a dream…” the princess whispered and he laughter softly “It was real, believe me. I was afraid also that when I woke up today… That maybe all had been a wonderful dream” Rhys whispered, “I had the same fear” she admitted. 

“Could you sleep after all? Did you have more nightmares that I didn't see?” Shiera murmured worried, “When I fell asleep after you calmed me… I only dreamt with you. Thank you, for everything” he confessed gratefully. 

They cuddled more, noticing each other's heartbeats, feeling that they never wanted to leave that bed. 

Then Cassian, Alec and Azriel's voices were heard, “They are awake… But it's too early…” Shiera complained with a grin and Rhys laughed again, “They are awake because we need to leave early, we have to talk with one of the lords of the camps” he explained. 

“And when will we return? I'm curious about that thing you will tell me when we return” Shiera indicated with a conspiratorial grin but the smile of his face disappeared, “Are you so excited to get rid of me?” Rhys inquired but was able to gave her a funny grin, she laughed and said “No matter what you tell me, nothing will change”, he sighed and murmured “I hope so…”.

 

* * *

 

Rhys told her to get dressed and to meet him at breakfast, “Mmm… Would you mind if they don't know what has happened? Things would be easier until you know the truth until I have told you…” he asked her softly, taking her hands before leaving, Shiera grinned and purred “Are you ashamed of me?”, Rhysand smirked and pulled her closer, holding the princess by her waist, “Never” he purred looking at her green eyes. 

Shiera seemed satisfied and she lifted her body standing on tiptoes as she planted a kiss on his lips, “I'll see you downstairs” she whispered smiling and winnowed to her bedroom so no one could see her leaving the High Lord's room. 

Rhys watched her leaving, still grinning at him. He had never seen possible that but… It had happened, the previous night they had kissed, she had chosen to stay with him even with the horrible nightmares, they had cuddle and kissed again. His mate, his wonderful and young mate… He had to tell Shiera the truth but he was afraid of how she could react. 

They had kissed and slept together… Shiera couldn't believe it. She was curious about that lies he had told her, the ones that in his opinion could make her regret the previous night, but she was excited of knowing the truth and maybe being with him. 

 

* * *

 

The illyrian war-camp deep in the northern mountains was freezing. Apparently, spring was still little more than a whisper in the region.

  
Mor and Alec winnowed them all in, Rhysand and Cassian flanking Shiera.  She managed to speak to them, but most of her energy went into not looking at Rhysand, or thinking about the feeling of his body pressed to hers as they had danced for hours, that brush of his mouth on her skin, his arms around her while they slept and his lips on hers… Shiera had barely been able to fall asleep because of it. 

Traitor. She was a traitor. She didn't care at all about Tamlin, he had forced their engagement but she had left him. But… had been dead for eight months, and their wedding had just been a year ago. In faerie terms, it was probably considered less than a week.

  
Tarquin had given her so much, done so many kind things for her and Nesta and Elain... And here Shiera was, wanting another male, even as Tarquin had made her promise that she would open her heart for another male, to find love again. Even if she still loved him, even if tears fell whenever she remembered her blue-eyed husband because how she still miss him… 

Traitor.

  
The word continued echoing in her head as she stood at Mor’s side, Rhys, Alec and Cassian a few steps ahead, and peered out at the wind-blown camp.  

  
Built near the top of a forested mountain, the illyrian camp was all bare rock and mud, interrupted only by crude, easy-to-pack tents centered around large fire pits. 

Near the tree line, a dozen permanent buildings had been erected of the gray mountain stone. Smoke puffed from their chimneys against the brisk cloudy morning, occasionally swirled by the passing wings overhead. So many winged males soaring past on their way to other camps or in training.

  
Indeed, on the opposite end of the camp, in a rocky area that ended in a sheer plunge off the mountain, were the sparring and training rings. Racks of weapons were left out to the elements; in the chalk-painted rings males of all ages now trained with sticks and swords and shields and spears. 

Fast,  lethal, brutal. No complaints, no shouts of pain. There was no warmth here, no joy. Even the houses at the other end of the camp had no personal touches, as if they were used only for shelter or storage.

  
And this was where Rhys, Azriel, and Cassian had grown up, where Cassian had been cast out to survive on his own. It was so cold that even bundled in my fur-lined leather, Shiera was shivering. She couldn’t imagine a child going without adequate clothing, or shelter for a night, much less eight years.

  
Mor’s face was pale, tight. “I hate this place” she said under her breath, the heat of it clouding the air in front of us. “It should be burned to the ground”.

  
Cassian and Rhys were silent as a tall, broad-shouldered older male approached, flanked by five other Cassiann warriors, wings all tucked in, hands within casual reach of their weapons. No matter that Rhys could rip their minds apart without lifting a finger.

  
They each wore Siphons of varying colors on the backs of their hands, the stones smaller than Azriel and Cassian’s. And only one. Not like the seven apiece that they wore to manage their tremendous power.

  
The male in front said, “Another camp inspection? Your dog” he jerked his chin at Cassian, “was here just the other week. The girls are training”. Cassian crossed his arms. “I don’t see them in the ring” he commenterd. “They do chores first” the male said, shoulders pushing back and wings flaring slightly, “then when they’ve finished, they get to train”.

  
A low snarl slipped past Mor’s mouth, and the male turned our way. He stiffened. Mor flashed him a wicked smile. “Hello, Lord Devlon.” The leader of the camp, then.

He gave her a dismissive once-over and looked back to Rhys. Cassian’s warning growl rumbled in Shieta's stomach. Rhys said at last, “Pleasant as it always is to see you, Devlon, there are two matters at hand: First, the girls, as you were clearly told by Cassian, are to train before chores, not after. Get them out on the pitch. Now”. Shiera shuddered at the pure command in that tone. 

He continued, “Second, we’ll be staying here for the time being. Clear out my mother’s old house. No need for a housekeeper. We’ll look after ourselves”. “The house is occupied by my top warriors” Devlon replied. “Then un-occupy it,” Rhysand said simply. “And have them clean it before they do”.

  
The voice of the High Lord of the Night Court, who delighted in pain, and made his enemies tremble.

  
Devlon sniffed at Shiera, she poured every bit of cranky exhaustion into holding his narrowed gaze. “Another like that … creature you bring here? I thought she was the only one of her ilk”. “Amren” Rhys drawled, “sends her regards. And as for this one… ”, Shiera tried not to flinch away from meeting his stare. “She’s mine” he said quietly, but viciously enough that Devlon and his warriors nearby heard. “And if any of you lay a hand on her, you lose that hand. And then you lose your head.”.

Shiera tried not to shiver, as Cassian and Mor showed no reaction at all. “And once Feyre is done killing you” Rhys smirked, “then I’ll grind your bones to dust”. Shiera almost laughed. But the warriors were now assessing the threat Rhys had established me as, and coming up short with answers. She gave them all a small smile, anyway, one she had seen Amren make a hundred times. Let them wonder what she could do if provoked.

  
“We’re heading out” Rhys said to Cassian, Alec and Mor, not even bothering to dismiss Devlon before walking toward the tree line. “We’ll be back at nightfall”. Rhysand’s gave his son a look. “Try to stay out of trouble, please. Devlon hates us the least of the war-lords and I don’t feel like finding another   
camp”.

  
Mother above, the others must be … unpleasant, if Devlon was the mildest of them. Alec winked at him. “I’ll try”. Then Rhys just shook his head and said to Cassian, “Check on the forces, then make sure those girls are practicing like they should be. If Devlon or the others object, do what you have to”. Cassian grinned in a way that showed he’d be more than happy to do exactly that. He was the High Lord’s general… and yet Devlon called him a dog. Shiera didn’t want to imagine what it had been like for Cassian without that title growing up.

  
Then finally Rhys looked at Shiera again, his eyes shuttered. “Let’s go. We’re going to train.”  “Where?” she asked quietly. He gestured to the sweeping land beyond, to the forested steppes he’d once mentioned. “Away from any potential casualties”. He offered his hand as his wings flared, his body preparing for flight. But all she heard were those two words he’d said, echoing against the steady beat of traitor, traitor. 

  
She’s mine.


	2. Rhys' family

Being in Rhys’s arms again, against his body, was a test of stubbornness. For both of them. To see who would speak about it first.

  
They had  been flying over the most beautiful mountains Shiera had ever seen, snowy and flecked with pines, heading toward rolling steppes beyond them when she said, “You’re training female Illyrian warriors?”. “Trying to.”. Rhys gazed across the brutal landscape. “I banned wing-clipping a long, long time ago, but … at the more zealous camps, deep within the mountains, they do it. And when Amarantha took over, even the milder camps started doing it again. To keep their women safe, they claimed. For the past hundred years, Cassian has been trying to build an aerial fighting unit amongst the females, trying to prove that they have a place on the battlefield. So far, he’s managed to train a few dedicated warriors, but the males make life so miserable that many of them left. And for the girls in training…” A hiss of breath.

“It’s a long road. But Devlon is one of the few who even lets the girls train without a tantrum”. “I’d hardly call disobeying orders ‘without a tantrum’” Shiera commented. “Some camps issued decrees that if a female was caught training, she was to be deemed unmarriageable. I can’t fight against things like that, not without slaughtering the leaders of each camp and personally raising each and every one of their offspring”.

  
The princess eyes met his, “And yet your mother loved them, and you four wear their tattoos”. “I got the tattoos in part for my mother, in part to honor my brothers, who fought every day of their lives for the right to wear them” Rhys explained.

  
“Why do you let Devlon speak to Cassian like that?” she inquired with her brows raised. “Because I know when to pick my fights with Devlon, and I know Cassian would be pissed if I stepped in to crush Devlon’s mind like a grape when he could handle it himself”.

  
A whisper of cold went through Shiera. “Have you thought about doing it?”. “I did just now. But most camp-lords never would have given the three of us a shot at the Blood Rite. Devlon let a half-breed and two bastards take it, and did not deny us our victory”.

  
Pines dusted with fresh snow blurred beneath them.

  
“What’s the Blood Rite?” Shiera asked while resting her head against his chest. “So many questions today...” he laughed, “You go unarmed into the mountains, magic banned, no Siphons, wings bound, with no supplies or clothes beyond what you have on you. You, and every other Illyrian male who wants to move from novice to true warrior. A few hundred head into the mountains at the start of the week, not all come out at the end”.

  
The frost-kissed landscape rolled on forever, unyielding as the warriors who ruled over it. “Do you kill each other?”. “Most try to. For food and clothes, for vengeance, for glory between feuding clans. Devlon allowed us to take the Rite, but also made sure Cassian, Azriel, and I were dumped in different locations”.

  
“What happened?”. “We found each other. Killed our way across the mountains to get to each other. Turns out, a good number of Illyrian males wanted to prove they were stronger, smarter than us. Turns out they were wrong”. Shiera dared a look at his face. For a heartbeat, she could see it: blood-splattered, savage, fighting and slaughtering to get to his friends, to protect and save them.

  
Rhys set them down in a clearing, the pine trees towering so high they seemed to caress the underside of the heavy, gray clouds passing on the swift wind.

  
“So, you’re not using magic… but I am?” she said, taking a few steps from him. “Our enemy is keyed in on my powers. You, however, remain invisible”. He waved his hand. “Let’s see what all your practicing has amounted to”.

“When… when did you meet Tamlin?”.

  
She knew what Rhysand’s father had done. But he hadn’t let herself think too much about it. About how he’d killed Tamlin’s father and brothers. And mother.  But now, after all those months in the Night Court…

  
Rhys’s face was a mask of patience. “Show me something impressive, and I’ll tell you. Magic for answers”. “I know what sort of game you’re playing...”, Shieta cut herself off at the hint of a smirk. “Very well”.

  
She held out her hand before her, palm cupped, and willed silence into her veins, her mind. Silence and calm and weight, like being underwater. In her hand, a butterfly of water flapped and danced.

Rhys smiled a bit, but the amusement died as he said, “Tamlin was younger than me, born when the War started. But after the War, when he’d matured, we got to know each other at various court functions. He…” Rhys clenched his jaw. “He seemed decent for a High Lord’s son. Better than Beron’s brood at the Autumn Court. Tamlin’s brothers were equally as bad, though. Worse. And they knew Tamlin would take the title one day. And to a half-breed Illyrian who’d had to prove himself, defend his power, I saw what Tamlin went through … I befriended him. Sought him out whenever I  
was able to get away from the war-camps or court. Maybe it was pity, but … I taught him some Illyrian techniques”.

  
“Did anyone know?”. He raised his brows, giving a pointed look to her hand. She scowled at him and summoned songbirds of water, letting them flap around the clearing as they’d flown around her bathing room.

  
“Cassian and Azriel knew” Rhys went on. “My family knew. And disapproved”. His eyes were chips of ice. “But Tamlin’s father was threatened by it. By me. And because he was weaker than both me and Tamlin, he wanted to prove to the world that he wasn’t. My mother and sister were to travel to the Illyrian war-camp to see me. I was supposed to meet them halfway, but I was busy training a new unit and decided to stay”.

  
Shiera's stomach turned over and over and over as Rhys said, “Tamlin’s father, brothers, and Tamlin himself set out into the Illyrian wilderness, having heard from Tamlin, from me, where my mother and sister would be, that I had plans to see them. I was supposed to be there. I wasn’t. And they slaughtered my mother and sister anyway”.

  
The princess began shaking her head, eyes burning. She didn’t know what she was trying to deny, or erase, or condemn.

  
“It should have been me… They put their heads in boxes and sent them down the river, to the nearest camp. Tamlin’s father kept their wings as trophies. I’m surprised you didn’t see them pinned in the study”.

  
Shiera was going to vomit; she was going to fall to her knees and weep.

  
But Rhys looked at the menagerie of water-animals she had crafted and said, “What else?”. Perhaps it was the cold, perhaps it was his story, but hoarfrost cracked in her veins, and the wild song of a winter wind howled in her heart. The princess felt it then, how easy it would be to jump between them, join them together, her powers. Each one of my animals halted mid-air… and froze into perfectly carved bits of ice. One by one, they dropped to the earth. And shattered. They were one. They had come from the same, dark origin, the same eternal well of power. Once, long ago, before language was invented and the world was new.

  
Rhys merely continued, “When I heard, when my father heard… I wasn’t wholly truthful to you when I told you Under the Mountain that my father killed Tamlin’s father and brothers. I went with him. Helped him. We winnowed to the edge of the Spring Court that night, then went the rest of the way on foot, to the manor. I slew Tamlin’s brothers on sight. I held their minds, and rendered them helpless while I cut them into pieces, then melted their brains inside their skulls. And when I got to the High Lord’s bedroom, he was dead. And my father… my father had killed Tamlin’s mother as well. My father had promised not to touch her. That we weren’t the kind of males who would do that. But he lied to me, and he did it, anyway. And then he went for Tamlin’s room”.

Shiera couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe as Rhys said, “I tried to stop him. He didn’t listen. He was going to kill him, too. And I couldn’t… After all the death, I was done. I didn’t care that Tamlin had been there, had allowed them to kill my mother and sister, that he’d come to kill me because he didn’t want to risk standing against them. I was done with death. So I stopped my father before the door. He tried to go through me. Tamlin opened the door, saw us, smelled the blood already leaking into the hallway. And I didn’t even get to say a word before Tamlin killed my father in one blow. I felt the power shift to me, even as I saw it shift to him. And we just looked at each other, as we were both suddenly crowned High Lord and then I ran”.

  
He’d murdered Rhysand’s family. The High Lord that had forced Shiera to get married, he’d murdered his friend’s family, and when she had asked how his family died, he’d merely told me a rival court had done it. Rhysand had done it, and...

  
“He didn’t tell you any of that”. “I… I’m sorry” she breathed, her voice hoarse. “What do you possibly have to be sorry for?” he asked. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know that he’d done that…” Shiera confessed while her lower lip shivered.

  
“Why did you stop?” he said, motioning to the ice shards on the pine-needle carpet.

  
The people he’d loved most… gone.  Slaughtered in cold blood. Slaughtered by Tamlin.

  
The clearing exploded in flame.

  
The pine needles vanished, the trees groaned, and even Rhys swore as fire swept through the clearing, her  heart, and devoured everything in its path.

  
No wonder he’d made Tamlin beg that day Shiera had been formally introduced to him. No wonder he’d relished every chance to taunt Tamlin. Maybe her  presence here was just to…

No. She knew that wasn’t true. She  knew her being here had nothing to do with what was between him and Tamlin, though he no doubt enjoyed interrupting their  wedding day. Saved her from that wedding day, actually.

  
“Shiera” Rhys said as the fire died. But there it was, crackling inside her  veins. Crackling beside veins of ice, and water.   
And darkness.

  
Embers flared around the clear, floating in the air, and she sent out a breath of soothing dark, a breath of ice and water, as if it were a wind, a wind at dawn, sweeping clean the world.

  
The power did not belong to the High Lords. Not any longer. It belonged to her as Shiera belonged only to herself, as her future was hers to decide, to forge. Once she discovered and mastered what the others had given her, she could weave them together, into something new, something of every Court and none of them.

  
Flame hissed as it was extinguished so thoroughly that no smoke remained. But the princess met Rhys’s stare, his eyes a bit wide as he watched her work. She rasped, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”.

  
The sight of him in his Illyrian fighting gear, wings spread across the entire width of the clearing, his blade peeking over his shoulder… There, in that hole in her chest, she saw the image there. At first interpretation, he’d look terrifying, vengeance and wrath incarnate. But if you came closer… the painting would show the beauty on his face, the wings flared not to hurt, but to carry her from danger, to shield her.

  
“I didn’t want you to think I was trying to turn you against him” he explained.

  
The painting… Shiera could see it; feel it. She wanted to paint it. She wanted, needed to paint.

  
Shiera didn’t wait for him to stretch out his hand before she went to him. And looking up into his face she declared “I want to paint you”. He gently lifted her into his arms. “Nude would be best” he purred in her ear.


	3. Lucien

Freezing rain trickled through the pine boughs as Shiera stalked through the mists in her illyrian fighting leathers, armed with a sword, quiver, and knives, shivering like a wet dog. Rhys was a few hundred feet behind, carrying their packs. 

 

They had flown deep into the forest steppes, far enough that they would have to spend the night out here. Far enough that no one and nothing might see another “glorious explosion of flame and temper,” as Rhys had put it. Azriel hadn’t brought word   
from Nesta and Elain of the queens’ status, so they had time to spare. Though Rhys certainly hadn’t looked like it when he informed Shiera that morning. But at least they wouldn’t have to camp out here. Rhys had promised there was some sort of wayfarer’s inn nearby.

  
She turned toward where Rhys trailed behind her, spotting his massive wings first.    
Rhys paused once he caught up, and even with the trees and rain between them, Shiera could see his brows lift in silent question of why she had paused.  The green-eyed female lifted a hand, signaling Rhys to stay where he was. He sketched a dramatic bow, and she rolled her eyes as she stalked to the stream ahead, contemplating where she might indeed try to play with Beron’s fire. Her fire.

  
Every step away, she could feel Rhys’s stare devouring her. Or maybe that was through the bond, brushing against her mental shields, flashes of hunger so insatiable that it was an effort to focus on the task ahead and not on the feeling of what his hands had been like, stroking her  thighs, pushing me against him.

  
Shiera could have sworn she felt a trickle of amusement on the other side of her mental shield, too. She hissed and made a vulgar gesture over my shoulder, even as I let her shield drop, just a bit. That amusement turned into full delight and then a lick of pleasure that went straight down her spine. Lower.

  
Her face heated, and a twig cracked under her boot, as loud as lightning. She gritted her teeth. The ground sloped toward a gray, gushing stream, fast enough that it had to be fed by the towering snow-blasted mountains in the distance.

  
Good, this spot was good. An extra supply of water to drown any flames that might escape, plenty of open space. The wind blew away from her, tugging her scent southward, deeper into the forest as she opened my mouth to tell Rhys to stay back.

  
With that wind, and the roaring stream, it was no surprise that she didn’t hear them until they had surrounded her.

  
“Shiera”.

  
The princess whirled, arrow nocked and aimed at the source of the voice… Four Spring Court sentinels stalked from the trees behind her like wraiths, armed to the teeth and wide-eyed. Two, she knew: Bron and Hart. And between them stood Lucien.

 

* * *

 

If she wanted to escape, she could either face the stream or face them. But Lucien …

His red hair was tied back, and there wasn’t a hint of finery on him: just armored leather, swords, knives… His metal eye roamed over the princess, his golden skin pale. “We’ve been hunting for you for over five months” he breathed, now scanning the woods, the stream, the sky.

  
Rhys. Cauldron save her. Rhys was too far back, and… 

  
“How did you find me?”. Her steady, cold voice wasn’t one she recognized. But, hunting for her. As if she was indeed prey.

If Tamlin was here… Her blood went icier than the freezing rain now sluicing down her face, into her clothes.

  
“Someone tipped us off you’d been out here, but it was luck that we caught your scent on the wind, and...”, Lucien took a step toward Shiera. She stepped back. Only three feet between her and the stream.  Lucien’s eye widened slightly. “We need to get out of here. Tamlin’s been… he hasn’t been himself. I’ll take you right to...”.  “No” she breathed.

The word rasped through the rain, the stream, the pine forest.  The four sentinels glanced between each other, then to the arrow she kept aimed.  Lucien took her in again. And she could see what he was now gleaning: the illyrian fighting leathers. The color and fullness that had returned to her face, her body. And the silent steel of her eyes.

  
“Shiera” he said, holding out a hand. “Let’s go home”. She didn’t move. “That was never my home. That was a prison, he locked me up”. Lucien’s mouth tightened. “It was a mistake. We all made mistakes. He’s sorry… more sorry than you realize. So am I”. He stepped toward her, and she backed up another few inches. Not much space remained between her and the gushing waters below.

  
Cassian’s training crashed into the princess, as if all the lessons he’d been drilling into her each morning were a net that caught her as she free-fell into my rising panic. Once Lucien touched her, he’d winnow them out. Not far, he wasn’t that powerful, but he was fast. He’d jump miles away, then farther, and farther, until Rhys couldn’t reach her. He knew Rhys was here.

  
“Shiera” Lucien pleaded, and dared another step, his hand outraised. Her arrow angled toward him, her bowstring groaning.

  
She had never realized that while Lucien had been trained as a warrior, Cassian, Azriel, Mor, and Rhys were Warriors. Cassian could wipe Lucien off the face of the earth in a single blow.

  
“Put the arrow down” Lucien murmured, like he was soothing a wild animal. Behind him, the four sentinels closed in. Herding her . A High Lord’s pet and possession.

“Don’t. Touch. Me” she breathed. “You don’t understand the mess we’re in, Shiera”.

  
She didn’t want to hear it. Peering at the stream below, she calculated her odds. The look cost her. Lucien lunged, hand out. One touch, that was all it’d take... 

“We… I need you home. Now” he continued but she couldn't listen to him, she only felt her beating heart inside her chest. “The Spring Court is not my home, it never was. Tamlin locked me up, he forced me to marry him. He knew how broken I was and he broke me even more”.

She was not the High Lord’s pet any longer.   
And maybe the world should learn that she did indeed have fangs.

  
Lucien’s finger grazed the sleeve of her leather jacket. And she became smoke and ash and night. The world stilled and bent, and there was Lucien, lunging so slowly for what was now blank space as Shiera stepped around him, as she hurtled for the trees behind the sentinels. 

She stopped, and time resumed its natural flow. Lucien staggered, catching himself before he went over the cliff, and whirled, eye wide to discover her now standing behind his sentinels. Bron and Hart flinched and backed away. 

From her and from Rhysand at her side.

  
Lucien froze. Shiera made my face a mirror of ice; the unfeeling twin to the cruel amusement on Rhysand’s features as he picked at a fleck of lint on his dark tunic. Dark, elegant clothes, no wings, no fighting leathers. The unruffled, fine clothes… Another weapon. To hide just how skilled and powerful he was; to hide where he came from and what he loved. A weapon worth the cost of the magic he'd used to hide it, even if it put us at risk of being tracked.

  
“Little Lucien” Rhys purred, “Didn’t the Lady of the Autumn Court ever tell you that when a female says no, she means it?”.

  
“Asshole” Lucien snarled, storming past his sentinels, but not daring to touch his weapons. “You filthy, whoring asshole”.

“Shut up” Shiera barked, “Don't you dare to say that again”.   
  
Lucien’s eyes sliced to her and he said with quiet horror, “What have you done, Shiera?”.

  
“Don’t come looking for me again” she said with equal softness. “He’ll never stop looking for you; never stop waiting for you to come home”.

“Vel… The Night Court is my home. Deal with it” Shiera declared but fear ran through her veins, she nearly said Velaris, she nearly betrayed Rhys and his people, everything that he had fought… She nearly destroyed it when she confessed where her heart (belonged) now. 

  
The words hit her in the gut, like they were meant to. It must have shown in my face because Lucien pressed, “What did he do to you? Did he take your mind and...”.

  
“Enough” Rhys said, angling his head with that casual grace. “Shiera and I are busy. Go back to your lands before I send your heads as a reminder to my old friend about what happens when Spring Court flunkies set foot in my territory”.

  
The freezing rain slid down the neck of her clothes, down my back. Lucien’s face was deathly pale. “You made your point, Shiera. Now come home”.

  
“I’m not a child playing games” she said through her teeth. That’s how they’d seen me: in need of coddling, explaining, defending…

  
“Careful, Lucien” Rhysand drawled, “Or Shiera darling will send you back in pieces, too”.

  
“We are not your enemies, Shiera” Lucien pleaded, “Things got bad, Ianthe got out of hand, but it doesn’t mean you give up...”.   
“You gave up” she breathed, “You gave up on me” she said a bit more loudly. “You were my friend. And you picked him, picked obeying him, even when you saw what his orders and his rules did to me. Even when you saw me wasting away day by day”.

“I was dying inside, I… I wanted to die… I was broken and Tamlin helped to finish what Amarantha started. I couldn’t bear to stay in Adriata and Tamlin said that he would help me but he… He locked me in a golden prison and forced me to marry him. He didn’t care that Tarquin had been dead for only two months!”.

Her heart was beating with the strength of a hurricane and her hands were trembling as she felt Rhys tightening by her side. 

“You have no idea how volatile those first few months were” Lucien snapped, “We needed to present a unified, obedient front, and I was supposed to be the example to which all others in our Court were held”.  “You saw what was happening to me. But you were too afraid of him to truly do anything about it” Shiera yelled. 

  
It was fear. Lucien had pushed Tamlin, but to a point. He’d always yielded at the end.

  
“I begged you” she said, the words sharp and breathless, “I begged you so many times to help me, to free me of the engagement, to get me out of the house, even for an hour. And you left me alone, or shoved me into a room with Ianthe, or told me to stick it out”.

  
Lucien said too quietly “And I suppose the Night Court is so much better?”.

  
Shiera remembered, remembered what she was supposed to know, to have experienced. What Lucien and the others could never know, not even if it meant forfeiting her own life. And she would. To keep Velaris safe, to keep Mor and Amren and Cassian and Azriel and Alec and… Rhys safe.

  
So she declared, low and quiet and as vicious as the talons that formed at the tips of her fingers, as vicious as the wondrous weight between her shoulder blades, “When you spend so long trapped in darkness, Lucien, you find that the darkness begins to stare back”.

  
A pulse of surprise, of wicked delight against her mental shields, at the dark, membranous wings she knew were now poking over her shoulders. Every icy kiss of rain sent jolts of cold through Shiera. Sensitive, so sensitive, these illryian wings.

  
Lucien backed up a step. “What did you do to yourself?”. She didn’t smile.  “I have no interest in spending immortality as Tamlin’s pet. The human girl you knew died Under the Mountain, she was murdered along with her husband. I am not longer that sweet and human girl. I am fae now but Tamlin nearly destroyed me those first months”.

  
Lucien started shaking his head. “Shiera...”.

“Tell Tamlin” she said, choking on his name, on the thought of what he had  done to Rhys, to his family, “if he sends anyone else into these lands, I will hunt each and every one of you down. And I will demonstrate exactly what the darkness taught me”.

  
There was something like genuine pain on his face. The princess didn’t care. She just watched him, unyielding and cold and dark. The creature she might one day have become if she had stayed at the Spring Court, if she had remained broken for decades, centuries… until she learned to quietly direct those shards of pain outward, learned to savor the pain of others.

  
Lucien nodded to his sentinels. Bron and Hart, wide-eyed and shaking, vanished with the other two. Lucien lingered for a moment, nothing but air and rain between them. He said softly to Rhysand, “You’re dead. You, and your entire cursed Court.” Then he was gone. 

Shiera stared at the empty space where Rhys had been, waiting, waiting, not letting that expression off her face until a warm, strong finger traced a line down the edge of her  right wing. It felt like, like having my ear breathed into. She shuddered, arching as a gasp came out of her. And then Rhys was in front of her, scanning her face, the wings behind her. Rhys’s eyes softened. “That was a very convincing performance”.

  
“I'm sorry… I nearly said Velaris, I…” Shiera began with shame and fear in her heart but Rhys cupped her face between his hands, “There's nothing to forgive, Shiera darling… You can't imagine how I felt when you said that…”. “I understand and I'm sorry. You must have felt an endless fear if I said anything about…”, “No” he breathed, “I wasn't afraid at all. I trust you. But you made me feel… Proud of your performance, angry because what Tamlin did to you but also grateful, grateful beyond measure that you considered Velaris as your home”.

Shiera took a step towards Rhys and wrapped her arms around his waist. “It is. And I am grateful that you offered it to me”. She lifted her head to look at his beautiful face and he leaned to claim her lips in a sweet kiss. His arms found her back as hers cradled his neck. 

After a moment that felt like eternity, they separated. “Shall we continue with our trip, princess?” Rhysand purred and she let out a laugh but was capable of nod, and his tunic and pants vanished, replaced by those familiar fighting leathers, the wings, the sword. Her warrior, her… What were they exactly? the princess asked herself.

A few mighty flaps had them soaring up through the trees and sailing low over the forest, rain slicing into Shiera's face.  “Are you all right?” Rhys said as he scooped her into his arms to fly them to another location. She nestled into his warmth, savoring it. “I don't know. It was true that he broke me but… After what you told me I hate him more for what he did to you, to your family… What he did to me is meaningless”.  “Don't you dare to say that again. What he did to you… You don't have an idea about what I would do to him, he would suffer each moment of your sorrow”, he took a breath, “I knew things were bad” Rhysand said with quiet rage, barely audible over the freezing bite of the wind and rain, “but I thought Lucien, at least, would have stepped in”. “I thought so, too” she whispered, her voice smaller than she intended. 

  
He squeezed her gently, and she blinked at him through the rain. His eyes were on her, not the landscape below as he said “You look good with wings”, she gave him an evil smirk and when Rhysand kissed her forehead, even the rain stopped feeling so cold.


	4. The Inn

Apparently, the nearby “inn” was little more than a raucous tavern with a few rooms for rent, usually by the hour. And, as it was, there were no vacancies. Save for a tiny, tiny room in what had once been part of the attic.

  
Rhys didn’t want anyone knowing who, exactly, was amongst the High Fae, faeries, illyrians, and whoever else was packed in the inn below.  Even Shiera barely recognized him as he, without magic, without anything but adjusting his posture, muted that sense of otherworldly power until he was nothing but a common, very good-looking illyrian warrior, pissy about having to take the last  available room, so high up that there was only a narrow staircase leading to it: no hall, no other rooms.

 

If she needed to use the bathing room, she would have to venture to the level below, which… given the smells and sounds of the half dozen rooms on that level, she made a point to use quickly on our way up and then vow not to visit again until morning.  A day of playing with water and fire and ice and darkness in the freezing rain had wrecked her so thoroughly that no one looked her way, not even the drunkest and loneliest of patrons in the town’s tavern.

 

The small town was barely that: a collection of an inn, an outfitter’s store, supply store, and a brothel. All geared toward the hunters, warriors, and travelers passing through this part of the forest either on their way to the illyrian lands or out of them. Or just for the faeries who dwelled here,   
solitary and glad to be that way. Too small and too remote for Amarantha or her cronies to have ever bothered with.

  
Honestly, Shiera didn’t care where they were, so long as it was dry and warm. Rhys opened the door to our attic room and stood aside to let her pass. 

 

Well, at least it was one of those things.

  
The ceiling was so slanted that to get to the other side of the bed, she would have to crawl across the mattress; the room so cramped it was nearly impossible to walk around the bed to the tiny armoire shoved against the other wall. The princess could sit on the bed and open the armoire easily.

  
The bed.

  
“I asked for two” Rhys said, hands already up and Shiera let out a laugh and then a shameless grin, “Indeed”.

  
His breath clouded in front of him. Not even a fireplace. And not enough space to even demand he sleep on the floor. 

  
“If you can’t risk using magic, then we’ll have to warm each other” Shiera purred, and instantly regretted it. “Body heat” I clarified. “I’ll try to keep my hands to myself, Shiera darling” he giggled and her mouth went a bit dry. 

 

“I’m hungry” she commented and he nodded with a smile, “I’ll go down and get us food while you change”. She lifted a brow and Rhys explained, “Remarkable as my own abilities are to blend in, my face is recognizable. I’d rather not be down there long enough to be noticed”.

 

Indeed, he fished a cloak from his pack and slid it on, the panels fitting over his wings, which he wouldn’t risk vanishing again. He had used power earlier in the day,  small enough, he said, that it might not be noticed, but we wouldn’t be returning to that part of the forest anytime soon. He tugged on the hood, and Shiera savored the shadows and menace and wings.

  
Death on swift wings. That’s what she would call the painting.

  
Rhys said softly, “I love it when you look at me like that”. The purr in his voice heated her blood. “Like what?” she inquired with a grin. 

  
“Like my power isn’t something to run from. Like you see me”. And to a male who had grown up knowing he was the most powerful High Lord in Prythian’s history, that he could shred minds if he wasn’t careful, that he was alone, alone in his power, in his burden, but that fear was his mightiest weapon against the threats to his people… 

  
“I think I was afraid of you at first” she admitted and his white teeth flashed in the shadows of his hood. “No, you weren’t. Nervous, maybe, but never afraid. I’ve felt the genuine terror of enough people to know the difference. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t keep away”.

  
“I am glad then, glad beyond measure that you didn’t kept away” Shiera declared getting closer as she let free her own darkness. 

 

* * *

 

Her half-frozen clothes were a misery to peel off as they clung to her rain-swollen skin, and she knocked into the slanted ceiling, nearby walls, and slammed her knee into the brass bedpost as she changed. The room was so cold she had to get undressed in segments: replacing a freezing shirt for a dry one, pants for fleece-lined leggings, sodden socks for thick, hand-knit lovelies that went up to her calves. 

 

When she had tucked herself into an oversized sweater that smelled faintly of Rhys, she sat cross-legged on the bed and waited. The bed wasn’t small, but certainly not large enough for her to pretend she wouldn’t be sleeping next to him. Especially with the wings.

  
The rain tinkled on the roof mere inches away, a steady beat to the thoughts that now pulsed in her head. The Cauldron knew what Lucien was reporting to Tamlin, likely at this very moment, if not hours ago. She didn't care about anything but what Tamlin would do against Rhys, against his wonderful family and Court. 

 

She had sent that note to Tamlin… and he had chosen to ignore it. Just as he’d ignored or rejected nearly all of her requests, acted out of his deluded sense of what he believed was right for her well-being and safety. And Lucien had been prepared to take Shiera against her will.

  
Fae males were territorial, dominant, arrogant, but the ones in the Spring Court … something had festered in their training. Because she knew, deep in her bones, that Cassian might push and test her limits, but the moment she said no, he’he would back off. And I knew that if… that if she had been wasting away and Rhys had done nothing to stop it, Cassian or Azriel would have pulled her out. They would have taken her somewhere, wherever she needed to be, and dealt with Rhys later. But Rhys … Rhys would never have not seen what was happening to her; would never have been so misguided and arrogant and self-absorbed. He would known what Ianthe was from the moment he met her. And he would understood what it was like to be a prisoner, and helpless, and to struggle, every day, with the horrors of both.

  
Shiera loved the High Lord who had shown her the comforts and wonders of Prythian; she loved the High Lord who let her have the time and food and safety to paint. 

She loved her husband, in her heart Tarquin would always have a place but… Amarantha had killed them both. She had broken the princess, had killed her husband… But she needed to feel again and with Rhys she felt alive, not just surviving. Maybe she was not a traitor after all because Tarquin had made her promise that she would fell in love again and… She had after all… She had. 

 

* * *

 

Rhys’s feet were near-silent, given away only by the slight groan of the stairs. Shiera rose to open the door before he could knock, and found him standing there, tray in his hands.  Two stacks of covered dishes sat on it, along with two glasses and a bottle of wine, and… 

  
“Tell me that’s stew I smell” she breathed in, stepping aside and shutting the door while he set the tray on the bed. Right, not even room for a table up here. “Rabbit stew, if the cook’s to be believed” he declared. “I could have lived without hearing that” she laughed and that smile tugged on something low in his gut. 

 

“What’s the other one beneath?” Shiera inquired raising a brow. “Meat pie. I didn’t dare ask what kind of meat”. She shot him a glare, but he was already edging around the bed to the armoire, his pack in hand. “Go ahead and eat” he said, “I’m changing first”. Indeed, he was soaked, and had to be freezing and sore. “You should have changed before going downstairs”. She picked up the spoon and swirled the stew, sighing at the warm tendrils of steam that rose to kiss her chilled face.

  
The rasp and slurp of wet clothes being shucked off filled the room. She tried not to think about that bare, golden chest, the tattoos. The hard muscles. 

  
She took a sip. Bland, but edible and, most importantly, hot. The princess ate in silence, listening to the rustle of his clothes being donned, trying to think of ice baths, of infected wounds, of toe fungus, anything but his naked body, so close… and the bed she was sitting on. She poured her self a glass of wine, then filled his. At last, Rhys squeezed between the bed and jutting corner of the wall, his wings tucked in close. He wore loose, thin pants, and a tight-fitting shirt of what looked to be softest cotton. 

 

“How do you get it over the wings?” Shiera asked while he dug into his own stew. “The back is made of slats that close with hidden buttons… But in normal circumstances, I just use magic to seal it shut”. “It seems like you have a great deal of magic constantly in use at once” she commented. A shrug. “It helps me work off the strain of my power. The magic needs release, draining, or else it’ll build up and drive me insane. That’s why we call the illyrian stones Siphons, they help them channel the power, empty it when necessary”.

  
“Actually insane?”. She set aside the empty stew bowl and removed the lid from the meat pie. “Actually insane. Or so I was warned. I can feel it, though, the pull of it, if I go too long without releasing it”.

  
“That’s horrible”. Another shrug. “Everything has its cost, Shiera darling. If the price of being strong enough to shield my people is that I have to struggle with that same power, then I don’t mind. Amren taught me enough about controlling it. Enough that I owe a great deal to her.  Including the current shield around my city while we’re here”.

  
Everyone around him had some use, some mighty skill. And yet there the princess was… nothing more than a strange hybrid. More trouble than she was worth. “You’re not” he said. “Don’t read my thoughts”. “I can’t help what you sometimes shout down the bond. And besides, everything is usually written on your face, if you know where to look. Which made your performance today so much more impressive”.

  
He set aside his stew just as she finished devouring her meat pie, and she slid back on the bed to the pillows, cupping her glass of wine between her chilled hands. She watched him eat while she drank. 

“Did you think I would go with him?”. He paused mid-bite, then lowered his fork. “I heard every word between you. I knew you could take care of yourself, and yet… ”. He went back to his pie, swallowing a bite before continuing. “And yet I found myself deciding that if you took his hand, I would find a way to live with it. It would be your choice”.

  
Shoera sipped from her wine. “And if he had grabbed me?”. There was nothing but uncompromising will in his eyes. “Then I would have torn apart the world to get you back”. A shiver went down her spine, and she couldn’t look away from him. “I would have fired at him” Shiera breathed, “if he had tried to hurt you or if he had repeated that word”.

The damn word that haunted him in his nightmares. 

  
His eyes flickered. “I know”.

  
He finished eating, placed the empty tray in the corner, and faced the princess on the bed, refilling her glass before tending to his. He was so tall he had to stoop to keep from hitting his head on the slanted ceiling.

  
“One thought in exchange for another” she said, “No training involved, please”. A chuckle rasped out of him, and he drained his glass, setting it on the tray. He watched her take a long drink from hers. “I’m thinking” he said, following the flick of her tongue over her bottom lip, “that I look at you and feel like I’m dying. Like I can’t breathe. I’m thinking that I want you so badly I can’t concentrate half the time I’m around you. But I can't do anything until you know everything and anyway, this room is too small for me to properly bed you. Especially with the wings”.

  
Her heart stumbled a beat. She didn’t know what to do with her arms, her legs, her face. She gulped down the rest of her wine and discarded the glass beside the bed, steeling her spine as she said, “I’m thinking that I can’t stop thinking about you. And that it’s been that way for a long while. Even before you saved me form that dammed wedding”. 

Shiera stared him for a while as he did the same. 

  
“We should go to sleep” she murmured while blinking. The patter of the rain was the only sound for a long moment before he agreed “All right”.

  
She crawled over the bed to the side tucked almost against the slanted ceiling and shimmied beneath the quilt. Cool, crisp sheets wrapped around her like an icy hand. But her shiver was from something else entirely as the mattress shifted, the blanket moved, and then the two candles beside the bed went out.

  
Darkness hit her at the same moment the warmth from his body did. It was an effort not to nudge toward it. Neither one of them moved, though. She stared into the dark, listening to that icy rain, trying to steal the warmth from him.

  
“You’re shivering so hard the bed is shaking” he indicated. “My hair is wet” she replied.

  
Rhys was silent, then the mattress groaned, sinking directly behind her as his warmth poured over the princess. “No expectations” he said, “Just body heat”. She scowled at the laughter in his voice. But his broad hands slid under and over her : one flattening against her stomach and tugging Shiera against the hard warmth of him, the other sliding under her ribs and arms to band around her chest, pressing his front into her. 

He tangled his legs with hers , and then a heavier, warmer darkness settled   
over them , smelling of citrus and the sea.   
Shiera ifted a hand toward that darkness, and met with a soft, silky material, his wing, cocooning and warming her. She traced jer finger along it, and he shuddered, his arms tightening around her.

  
“Your finger… is very cold” he gritted out, the words hot on her neck. She tried not to smile, even as she tilted her neck a bit more, hoping the heat of his breath might caress it again. 

Shiera dragged her finger along his wing, the nail scraping gently against the smooth surface. Rhys tensed, his hand splaying across her stomach. 

“You cruel, wicked thing” he purred, his nose grazing the exposed bit of neck she had arched beneath him. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you manners?”. “I never knew illyrians were such sensitive babies” she purred back, sliding another finger down the inside of his wing. Something hard pushed against her behind. Heat flooded her, and she went taut and loose all at once. 

She stroked his wing again, two fingers now, and he twitched against her backside in time with the caress. The fingers he had spread over her stomach began to make idle, lazy strokes. He swirled one around her navel, and she inched imperceptibly closer, grinding up against him, arching a bit more to give that other hand access to her breasts.

  
“Greedy” he murmured, his lips hovering over her neck. “First you terrorize me with your cold hands, now you want… what is it you want, Shiera darling?”.

  
More, more, more, she almost begged him as his fingers traveled down the slope of her breasts, while his other hand continued its idle stroking along her stomach, her abdomen, slowly… so slowly… heading toward the low band of her pants and the building ache beneath it.

  
Rhysand’s teeth scraped against her neck in a lazy caress. “What is it you want, Shiera?”. He nipped at my earlobe. She cried out just a little, arching fully against him, as if she could get that hand to slip exactly to where she wanted it. She knew what he wanted her to say. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of it. Not yet. “I want you” she said breathless, “I need you”.

  
His body again tensed behind her. Would she want the same after learning the truth? What if that was their last night together? 

  
But his hands resumed their roaming. “Then allow me the pleasure of needing you, too”.

He slipped a hand beneath the top of her sweater, diving clean under her shirt. Skin to skin, the calluses of his hands made her groan as they scraped the top of her breast and circled around her peaked nipple. “I love these” he breathed onto her neck, his hand sliding to her other breast. “You have no idea how much I love these”. Shiera groaned as he caressed a knuckle against her nipple, and she bowed into the touch, silently begging him. 

He was hard as granite behind her, and she ground against him, eliciting a soft, wicked hiss from him. “Stop that” he snarled onto her skin. “You’ll ruin my fun”. She would do no such thing. Shiera began twisting, reaching for him, needing to just feel him, but he clicked his tongue and pushed himself harder against her, until there was no room for her hand to even slide in.

  
“I want to touch you first” he said, his voice so guttural she barely recognized it. “Just… let me touch you”. He palmed her breast for emphasis. It was enough of a broken plea that she paused, yielding as his other hand again trailed lazy lines on her stomach.

  
I can’t breathe when I look at you.

Let me touch you.   
She’s mine.

  
Shiera shut out the thoughts, the bits and pieces he had given her. Rhys slid his finger along the band of her pants again, a cat playing with its dinner.

  
Again.

  
Again.

  
“Please” she managed to say. He smiled against her neck. “There are those missing manners”. His hand at last trailed beneath her pants. The first brush of him against her dragged a groan from deep in her throat.

He snarled in satisfaction at the wetness he found waiting for him, and his thumb circled that spot at the apex of her thighs, teasing, brushing up against it, but never quite… 

  
His other hand gently squeezed her breast at the same moment his thumb pushed down exactly where she wanted. Shiera bucked her hips, her head fully back against his shoulder now, panting as his thumb flicked… 

  
She cried out, and he laughed, low and soft. “Like that?”. A moan was her only reply. 

 

More more more.

  
His fingers slid down, slow and brazen, straight through the core of Shiera, and every point in her body, her mind, her soul, narrowed to the feeling of his fingers poised there like he had all the time in the world.   
Bastard. 

“Please” she said again, and ground her ass against him for emphasis. He hissed at the contact and slid a finger inside meher  He swore. “Fireheart...”. But she had already started to move on him, and he swore again in a long exhale. 

His lips pressed into her neck, kissing up, up toward her ear. She let out a moan so loud it drowned out the rain as he slid in a second finger, filling her so much she couldn’t think around it, couldn’t breathe. “That’s it” he murmured, his lips tracing her ear.

  
Shiera was sick of her neck and ear getting such attention. She twisted as much as she could, and found him staring at her, at the hand down the front of her pants, watching her move on him. He was still staring at her when she captured his mouth with her own, biting on his lower lip. Rhys groaned, plunging his fingers in deeper. Harder.

  
Shiera didn’t care, didn’t care one bit about what she was and who she was and where she had been as she yielded fully to him, opening her mouth. His tongue swept in, moving in a way that she knew exactly what he would do if he got between her legs. His fingers plunged in and out, slow and hard, and her very existence narrowed to the feel of them, to the tightness in her ratcheting up with every deep stroke, every echoing thrust of his tongue in her mouth.

  
“You have no idea how much I...”. He cut himself off, and groaned again. “Shiera...”.

The sound of hee name on his lips was her undoing. Release barreled down her spine, and she cried out, only to have his lips cover hers, as if he could devour the sound. 

His tongue flicked the roof of her mouth while she shuddered around him, clenching tight. He swore again, breathing hard, fingers stroking her through the last throes of it, until she was limp and trembling in his arms. 

Shieea couldn’t breathe hard enough, fast enough, as Rhys withdrew his fingers, pulling back so she could meet his stare. He said “I wanted to do that when I felt how drenched you were at the Court of Nightmares. I wanted to have you right there in the middle of everyone. But mostly I just wanted to do this”. His eyes held hers as he claimed her lips again. The taste of her. And she was going to eat him alive. 

She slid a hand up to his chest to pin him down, but he gripped her wrist. “When you lick me” he said roughly, “I want to be alone, far away from everyone. Because when you lick me, princess” he said, pressing nipping kisses to her jaw, her neck, “I’m going to let myself roar loud enough to bring down a mountain”.

  
Shiera was instantly liquid again, and he laughed under his breath. “And when I lick you” he continued, sliding his arms around her and tucking her in tight to him, “I want you splayed out on a table like my own   
personal feast. I’ve had a long, long time to think about how and where I want you”, Rhys said onto the skin of her neck, his fingers sliding under the band of her pants, but stopping just beneath. Their home for the evening. “I have no intention of doing it all in one night. Or in a room where I can’t even fuck you against the wall”.

  
The princess shuddered. He remained long and hard against her. She had to feel him, had to get that considerable length inside of her… 

  
“Sleep” he whispered. He might as well have commanded me to breathe underwater. But he began stroking her body again, not to arouse, but to soothe… long, luxurious strokes down her stomach, her sides.

  
Sleep found me faster than Shiera had thought. And maybe it was the wine, or the aftermath of the pleasure he had wrung from me, but she didn’t have a single nightmare.

  
  
  



End file.
